Ross Mirkarimi's protests an exercise in futility

ON SAN FRANCISCO

Published 4:00 am, Saturday, June 9, 2012

Ross Mirkarimi appears at a San Francisco Ethics Commission hearing at City Hall in San Francisco, Calif. Tuesday, May 29, 2012.

Ross Mirkarimi appears at a San Francisco Ethics Commission hearing at City Hall in San Francisco, Calif. Tuesday, May 29, 2012.

Photo: Sarah Rice, Special To The Chronicle

Ross Mirkarimi's protests an exercise in futility

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As someone who is having trouble seeing the forest for the trees, Ross Mirkarimi is in dire need of a chain saw.

His latest legal flier - that the city should use taxpayer funds to pay for attorneys to help him battle the city so he can keep his job - sounds far-fetched at best. But it is just the latest example of someone who isn't getting it.

"Somebody's got to reel him in like a kite," said Peter Keane, a law professor and former chief assistant public defender in San Francisco. "He continues on this Don Quixote-like quest that isn't going to get him anything but a broken lance on a windmill."

It's a shame, because almost all of us have said at some point, "I kind of feel sorry for the guy." A few months ago he'd won a tough election for sheriff, had a beautiful wife and young child, and was the political standard-bearer for the city's left wing.

But since news broke of the New Year's Eve argument with his wife, Eliana Lopez, it's been one misstep after another. He should have immediately called a news conference, admitted he bruised her arm, expressed contrition and remorse, and announced he was entering anger management and marriage counseling.

Instead, Mirkarimi veered off on political conspiracy theories, tin-eared comments about how this is a family matter, an inappropriate joke about how the incident assured media coverage of the inauguration, and a series of no-win legal challenges.

A losing battle

Honestly, it is hard to get a fix on where he thinks this will end. He's been suspended without pay, and legal expenses must be killing him. Even if he thinks he can win, with all the legal wrangling, his term of office could be almost over by then. And if he thinks he'd be re-elected, he's dreaming. Two weeks ago a poll found that 76 percent of the public agrees with Mayor Ed Lee's decision to replace him as sheriff.

Outsiders wonder who, if anyone, is advising him. Former Mayor Art Agnos, a savvy political hand, has stuck by him, but when I called to ask what he thought of the demand that the city should pay for his attorneys, Agnos hadn't heard of it.

More and more Mirkarimi sounds like a guy, all alone, brooding over how he thinks he's been wronged.

I contacted Mirkarimi about his financial request, and he texted me back Friday with a list of complaints about the mayor, from "he suspended me without pay and due process and he filed specious charges" to he "gets to spend unlimited resources but (is) determined at all costs to prevent me from defending myself."

Good luck with selling all that.

"He doesn't have a prayer," Keane said. "The endgame will be he is tremendously in debt and doesn't win the legal proceeding."

Magical thinking

The letter sent to the city attorney, in which Mirkarimi says Dennis Herrera's office "chose to represent the mayor in derogation of your equally compelling legal duty to represent me," is another trip through the looking glass.

The idea seems to be that, because the city attorney is representing the city in the case against Mirkarimi, the city should pay for his personal attorneys in defense.

Herrera's reply had the barely concealed snark of a legal smack down.

"This proceeding is not a private dispute between the Mayor and the Sheriff," Herrera wrote. "The City Attorney's office represents the Mayor's Office (italics added by Herrera) in the pending misconduct proceedings, just as we continue to represent and advise the Sheriff's Office regarding city business."

So that doesn't sound like a winner, which is an unfortunate trend.

"He seems to engage a lot of energy in tangential things that do not get him anywhere," Keane said. "It was like that huge argument over admitting the videotape (of Lopez showing her bruise). That's the relevant evidence in the case. No way was that going to be kept out. It seemed like an enormous exercise in futility."

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